Читать книгу Good Day In Hell - J.D. Rhoades - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

“He did what!?” Angela said.

They were in her tiny office at the rear of the storefront that housed H & H Bail Bonds. She looked at Sanchez, who sat in the chair in front of the desk, his leg propped up in the other chair. “Oscar, have you lost your mind?” Sanchez looked away in embarrassment.

“Take it easy,” Keller said. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his thumb hooked into the waistband of his jeans. “He did great.”

“You can’t just go coldcocking people,” Angela said. “Even if they are jumpers.”

“Well…” Keller said. “He, ah…he didn’t really have much choice.”

Angela sat down. “What aren’t you telling me?” She looked from Sanchez’s face to Keller’s. Neither would meet her eyes. Finally Sanchez sighed. “Manuel Olivera had a knife. He pulled it on me.”

“I see.” Her face was expressionless. She took a deep breath. “Oscar,” she said after a long moment. “Would you excuse us for a minute?”

Sanchez crossed his arms across his chest. “No,” he said. “I am not a child. This is about me. You do not send me out of the room to discuss it.”

Angela put her face in her hands. It was warm in the office and she had removed the gloves which she usually wore. The web of burn scars on the backs of her hands shone pale white in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the office.

“Okay then,” she said finally as she put her hands down. She looked at Keller. “There wasn’t supposed to be any violence.” Her face was calm, her voice controlled, but there was no mistaking the accusation.

Keller shrugged, holding his own temper in check. “There was nothing in his priors that said he’d go off like that. There wasn’t any way to know.”

“He panic,” Sanchez said. “Sorry…he panicked.” “Okay,” Angela said. Her voice cracked slightly on the second syllable. She cleared her throat. “Okay,” she said in a firmer voice. “What’s done is done. But Oscar, that’s the last time. You don’t go out on takedowns anymore.”

Sanchez stood up slowly. His face was dark with anger. “I decide that, Angela.” His accent had gotten thicker with his agitation and the name came out as An-he-la.

Angela stood up and put her hands on the desk. “This is my business, Oscar,” she said. “I decide who works for me and how.”

Sanchez gestured at Keller. “He puts himself in danger all the time,” he said. “And you care for him. I know you do.”

“That’s different,” Angela snapped. “He … it’s just different.”

“Si, I know,” Sanchez said. He hobbled to the door, wincing. Keller moved out of his way. “He is not a cripple,” Sanchez said as he walked out. After a few moments, they heard the bell on the front door jingle as he walked out into the street.

Angela sat back down and folded her arms in front of her on the desk. She put her head down on them. Keller sat down in the seat Sanchez had just vacated. He waited silently. Finally, Angela looked up. “I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?” she said.

“Yeah,” Keller said.

She looked at him. “Keller, you think just once you could lie to make me feel better?”

“I doubt it. It wouldn’t work.”

“Damn it, Jack, he’s a schoolteacher. He’s not a bounty hunter.”

“He was a schoolteacher back in Colombia,” Keller said. “He’s been through a lot since then.”

Angela laughed sharply. “That’s an understatement.”

Then she sighed. “I just don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Sounds like you guys are getting pretty close.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“That’s good. He’s a good man.” Something in his voice made Angela look up.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He stood up. “You need me to do anything else?”

She stood up as well. “Come on, Jack,” she said. “Don’t dodge. This is me you’re talking to.”

He shrugged. “There’s no point. We’ve both moved on.”

“Yeah,” she said. “We have. That doesn’t mean there’s no point in us talking.” She smiled sadly. “We’ve done this conversation, Jack. It never would have worked between the two of us. But you’re still my best friend.” She walked over and slipped her arm around his waist. He put an arm around her shoulder. He squeezed gently, mindful of the bum scars on her back and shoulders that still pained her. “I know,” he said.

She gave him a final squeeze and stepped away. For a moment it left an empty feeling at his side. “I’ll finish the paperwork on Olivera,” she said.

“You still want to split the fee with Oscar?”

“Yeah.”

“What split?”

Keller considered. “Fifty-fifty. I found the guy, he did the takedown. Plus, he needs the money.”

She smiled. “You’re a pretty good guy yourself, Keller.” She picked up a file off the counter and handed it to him. “I’ve got another one for you, anyway.”

He flipped the file open. At the top was a picture of a young blonde woman. It was not a flattering picture; mug shots rarely were. The woman’s eyes were puffy and bloodshot under an unruly thatch of short blonde hair. Her prominent jaw was thrust defiantly forward toward the camera. He pulled the picture out and set it aside.

“Laurel Marks,” Angela said. “Missed her court date two days ago.”

Keller found the release order, written on flimsy blue paper. He saw the amount of bail and whistled. “Seventy-five grand? What the hell’d she do?”

“ADW,” Angela said. “She was working as a waitress at the Omelet House on Market Street. Went for one of her co-workers with a carving knife one morning.”

“Not a morning person, I guess. Still, seventy-five K is a lot. She doesn’t have the kind of priors that would lead to that much bond.”

“Not as an adult. But I talked to the magistrate. She’s got a pretty bad juvie record. The magistrates know her by sight, and so did Judge Banning. The magistrate was trying to get a message across.”

“You’re playing in the big leagues now, kid,” Keller said.

“Right. And when she drew Judge Banning for her arraignment…” She grimaced. “I don’t think Banning’s reduced a bond since he went on the bench.”

Keller looked up. “What kind of record?” “Drugs, mostly. But some assaults. Little girl’s got a temper, it seems.”

“Kids don’t usually learn that kind of anger on their own,” Keller said. “Any Social Services involved?”

Angela nodded. “The magistrate said there was. He didn’t know any details.”

“Well, not likely that Social Services is going to give us anything. Any family in the area?”

“Both parents are local.”

“They the ones who put up the cash?”

Angela shook her head. “No. Some guy. Said he was a friend of hers.”

Keller arched an eyebrow. “Huh. Must’ve been some friend to put up ten percent of seventy-five grand.” He flipped the file open again and read the name on the bail bond application. “Roy Randle.”

“Yeah,” Angela said. “Older guy, maybe early forties.”

Keller frowned. “You think maybe he’s pimping her?”

“I doubt it,” Angela said. “Not many pimps would shell out seventy-five hundred to get a girl out of jail.”

“Unless he was trying to keep her quiet.” Keller’s frown deepened. “This one’s got a weird vibe to it.”

Angela nodded. She looked unhappy. “I know. But I’ll be straight with you, Jack. Things are kind of stretched right now. If I have to give up seventy-five thousand dollars …”

“I know,” said Keller. “I’ll find her.”

“But Jack, please be careful,” she said. “You’re right. This one feels weird.”

Keller looked back at the picture. He felt the beginnings of the hunter’s rush he always felt when he got a jumper, the steadily rising drumbeat of adrenaline in his veins that grew and grew as he got closer to the takedown. He almost didn’t hear Angela when she said, “So, you seeing Marie this weekend?”

He tore his eyes away. “We’re trying to get together, yeah. Still trying to iron out the details.”

“How’s she doing, anyway?”

Keller shook his head, then sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “She says she doesn’t want to talk about what happened.”

“That’s not good, Jack. She killed a man.” She said the last sentence quietly, in a near-whisper, even though they were alone. “She’s got to deal with that.”

He shrugged. “She did what she had to do.”

“And the fact that it had to be done makes it easier, Jack?” Angela said. “You know better than that.”

“I know,” he said. His voice was tight with frustration. “But she won’t talk. And I don’t know what to do.”

Angela put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m prying.”

“No,” he said. He sat down. “You’re right. I’m not mad at you. I’m just—” He threw his hands up. She stood behind the chair, rested her chin on top of his head, and hugged him from behind. “Poor Jack,” she said. “Still trying to save everybody.” They stayed like that for a moment before Angela sighed and pulled away. “Stay with it, Jack,” she said softly. “You two—” Her voice caught, then she steadied it. “You two are good for each other.” She looked out the front window toward the street.

“No regrets?” Keller said after a moment.

She laughed sadly. “Oh, plenty of those, Keller,” she said. “But nothing I can’t handle.”

There was a small crowd gathered at the front doorway of the service station as Marie pulled in. Cars were parked randomly around the concrete slab. Marie picked up the radio. “County, thirty-five is 10-23.”

The reply came back immediately. “10-4,” the dispatcher acknowledged. “Thirty-five, be advised, EMS is en route.” The dispatcher pronounced it “in root.”

“10-4, County, I hear them,” she replied. She reached into the glove box and pulled out a box of rubber surgical gloves, tucking a pair into her pocket as she got out.

Marie felt her pulse quicken as she jogged over to the small knot of people. There were three men and a woman, clustered in the doorway. “Move aside, please,” she said. They looked up at her, faces still blank with shock. No one spoke. No one moved, either. Only when she pushed forward did they give ground, reluctantly, as if they were trying to protect her from what they had already seen.

She saw the body of a man, lying on his back on the floor. His hands were over his face. The hands were covered with blood. Flecks of unidentifiable tissue were mixed into the rapidly congealing fluid coating the fingers. Marie knelt by the body. The people pushed back into their earlier positions, looking down at her. She looked up in irritation. “You people need to get back,” she said. “This is a crime scene.” Nobody moved. “I said, get back!” she snapped. For a brief second she heard the voice she used when she was at the end of her rope with her son, what she called the “Mad Mommy” voice. It seemed to work; the people edged back. Marie fought back the hysterical urge to laugh. Steady, girl, she told herself. She bent back to the man on the ground. She took the pair of rubber gloves from her back pocket and pulled them on. Gently, she pulled the hands away from the face.

“Oh, God,” she said. She felt her stomach heave. The man’s face was a mess of brain, blood, and smashed bone. I am not going to throw up, I am not going to throw up, she said to herself as she clenched her teeth. Automatically, her hand slid down to the artery at the base of the man’s neck, searching for the pulse she knew she wouldn’t find. The sudden howl of the ambulance pulling in made her jump. She stood up as the shrieking spun down to a rumbling purr. Her knees trembled slightly as she turned toward the two paramedics, a man and a woman, who spilled out of the truck and began jogging toward her. They slowed to a walk as they saw Marie’s face. She shook her head. They came in anyway and she stepped aside. She felt the trembling in her knees begin to spread to the rest of her body. She closed her eyes.

Against the back of her eyelids, like a picture on a movie screen, she saw another body, lying by the side of a road, illuminated by the riot and flash of the lights of her cruiser, her partner’s face looking up at her, frozen in a last look that said What the hell just happened to me…

Stop it. She took a deep shuddering breath and straightened her shoulders. Do the work, her own voice came again in her head. Do the next thing. For a moment, she fumbled for what the next thing might be. Secure the scene, the voice said. And the witnesses. She got to work.

By the time the detective pulled up, Marie had the scene lined off with rolls of bright yellow tape from her trunk and the witnesses corralled over to one side of the parking lot. One of the men had complained that he and his buddy had to get to work and had looked like he was going to make an issue of it. He had even muttered something under his breath about “not taking any shit from any girl deputy.” Marie had just unclipped the handcuffs from her gun belt and stared significantly at him. He had backed down and was now sitting on a stack of boxes.

Marie was bent down, drawing a chalk circle around a shell casing near the body when the brown unmarked car pulled in. There was a mini-gumball light pulsing blue on the dash, but no siren. A man got out.

Marie had once had an art class in high school where they had tried to teach her figure drawing. The teacher had told them to start by sketching the basic parts of the body as rounded shapes: an oval for the head, another for the torso, long thin ovals for the limbs. But the man approaching seemed to have been made out of squares and rectangles. His iron-gray hair was cut across the top of his squarish head in a brush cut. His shoulders were broad and blocky and his body seemed to drop straight from them to the ground with no visible waist. His face was pitted with ancient acne scars and his nose had been broken long ago and badly reset, giving him the look of a prizefighter who had had more losses than wins. She was so new, it took her a moment to place the name. Shelby, she finally recalled. She didn’t know anything about him beyond that. He stopped and looked around at the scene, noting the tape and the witnesses. He looked at Marie for a second, then nodded almost imperceptibly. He walked inside and stood over the body for a moment, looking down. Then he turned slowly, looking things over, before walking back out. He jerked his chin at the paramedics sitting in the open door of the ambulance. “They move anythin’?” he said. His voice was surprisingly high for such a big man and his accent was pure country.

“No sir,” she said.

Shelby cracked a tight grin, showing crooked teeth. Marie decided he was probably one of the ugliest men she had ever met, but there was something about the smile that relaxed her. “Don’t call me sir,” he said. “I work for my livin’.” Marie recognized the non-com joke that must have been old in the time of the Roman legions. Shelby was obviously ex-military. Marie smiled back, relaxing a little more. “Just checked him over. He was dead when I got here.”

Shelby nodded again. “Get any statements?”

“No sir … I mean, no,” she said. “Waiting for you.”

“Awright,” he said. He looked around. “Looks like you got ever’thing pretty well squared away,” he said. “Good work.”

“Thanks,” she said.

He looked back at her, then down at her hands. “Y’better wash that blood off, though. Don’t want to spread it around. Besides, y’might forget and touch your face or your hair.” He grinned mirthlessly. “We don’t know where this feller’s been.”

She looked down. Her gloves were still streaked with gore. “Okay,” she said. “Sorry. Let me find a bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be here,” he said as he turned toward the people standing by.

Marie located the restroom around the side of the building. She grimaced as she looked around at the grimy tile and cracked fixtures. As she reached for the faucet, she noticed a drop of blood on the edge of the sink. She stopped short, her hand a few inches away from the faucet. She looked around. There was another drop of blood, almost too small to notice unless you were looking for it, on the floor. She looked over at the toilet stall, a feeling of dread twisting her stomach. Another body in there? she wondered. Slowly, she pushed the door open. The stall was empty.

Marie breathed out. She had not realized till then that she had been holding her breath. Then the paper towels sticking out of the trash can caught her eye. She walked over and looked down. There was blood there, too, ragged stains soaked into the rough flimsy paper.

Marie’s head snapped up as a scream came from outside. She slammed the door open with one hand and drew her weapon with the other. She skidded to a stop at the comer of the building as another scream split the air. It sounded like a woman.

Marie held the 9MM Beretta in a two-handed grip, her elbows slightly bent to take the recoil. Then she stepped out, planting her feet shoulder-width apart, her eyes hunting for targets.

Bells hanging on the front door jingled as Keller walked into the small diner. A plump waitress with badly dyed red hair looked up from pouring coffee for a table of men in paint-spattered overalls. “Sit anywhere you want, hon,” she called out. “Be with you in just a sec.”

This time of day, with breakfast long over and the lunch crowd petering out, the place was mostly empty. A few older men sat on stools at the counter, nursing coffees or glasses of iced tea, newspapers propped up before them or spread on the counter. The rich smells of coffee, eggs, and bacon still hung in the air. Keller slid into a booth. The red-haired waitress came over, the coffeepot still in her hand. The table was already fully set, and Keller turned the inverted coffee cup upright.

The waitress filled it and handed him a laminated plastic menu. “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ll just have the coffee.”

“Okay, shug, take your time,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. As she started to turn away, Keller said, “You got a minute?”

She turned back, a look of mild surprise on her ruddy, kind face. “Can I hep you?” she asked.

“I’m trying to find Laurel Marks. Anyone know—”

The face shut down, all of the friendliness suddenly evaporated. “She don’t work here no more.”

“I know,” Keller said. “I was wondering if—”

“I’ll get the manager,” the waitress said. She walked off, slowly, as if her feet hurt.

After a few moments, a man in cook’s white pants and a sweat-stained T-shirt came out. He was in his late thirties, but hard work and harder partying had already carved deep lines in his face and under his eyes. His scraggly hair poked out at odd angles from beneath his flat round paper cap. A bushy cavalryman’s moustache almost, but not quite, hid his badly crooked teeth when he spoke.

“You lookin’ for Laurel?” he said. His voice was a raspy croak, his eyes narrow and suspicious.

“Yeah,” Keller said. “I work for her bondsman. She skipped bail on us.”

The eyes grew less wary. “You tryin’ to put her in jail, huh?”

“That’s right.”

The manager leaned back and smiled. “Well shit, somebody sure’s hell ought to. Jesus, that bitch was flat crazy.” He extended a hand covered with healed burns and old scars from kitchen mishaps. “I’m Bart,” he said. He didn’t offer a last name.

Keller shook his hand. “Jack,” he said.

Bart leaned back and took off his cap. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. He produced a cigarette and lit it. “You got a card, Jack?” he said. “I mean, it ain’t like I don’t trust people, but…” He left the sentence hanging.

Keller handed him a card. Bart studied it through the haze of his cigarette smoke. “H & H Bonds. Yeah, I used them a time or two.” He pocketed the card. “Actually, Alicia’s the one you ought to ask about Laurel,” he said. He looked around.

“’LICIA!” he bellowed suddenly. The men at the counter looked up. The painters at the nearby booth stopped talking. “‘LICIA!” Bart yelled again.

A rail-thin blonde girl in the same uniform as the other waitress came out the back, wiping her hands on a rag. “What is it, Bart?” she whined. “I got side work to finish …” She stopped as she caught sight of Keller. She smiled at him and walked over to stand beside Bart. “Who’s your friend, Bart?” she asked. She tried to make it sound flirtatious, but the nasal quality of her voice spoiled the effect.

“Jack here works for Laurel’s bail bondsman. She skipped bail and he’s lookin’ for her.”

“That bitch!” Alicia said. Her voice went up an octave and the word came out as two syllables: bee-yitch. “Look what she did to my arm!” She pulled the polyester sleeve of her uniform up almost to one bony shoulder. All Keller could see was the bandage that ran from her shoulder down to her bicep. “She coulda kilt me!” Alicia said dramatically. She looked around to where the men at the counter were still staring. “She coulda kilt me!” she announced again to the room.

Bart slid out of the booth. Alicia took his place. “Don’t take too long,” he growled at Alicia. “I ain’t payin’ you to talk.” He didn’t wait for an answer before walking off.

“Fuck you, Bart,” Alicia said, too softly for him to hear. She smiled at Keller again. She twirled a lock of her thin blonde hair around her index finger. “So,” she said, “Crazy Laurel skipped out on you” Her voice was light and teasing.

Keller nodded. “Yeah. Thought I’d check and see if anyone knew where she might hang out. Or where she lived, stuff like that.”

Alicia’s eyes brightened. “Whatcha gonna do when you catch her? You gonna cuff her?”

“Probably. Most people don’t really want to come with me.”

She leaned forward. “You bring your cuffs with you? Can I see ‘em?”

“They’re in the car.”

“Maybe you can show ‘em to me later,” she said. Keller grinned. “You always ask guys you just met to show you their handcuffs?”

She grinned back. “If they’re cute enough,” she said.

“You could get in trouble that way,” he replied.

“Honey,” she said, with all the clueless bravado a twenty-year-old can summon, “I love trouble.” She punched him lightly on the forearm, then leaned back. “I’m just playin’,” she said.

It was an old game, invitation and withdrawal. Keller played along. To keep her talking, he told himself.

“I know,” he said.

“I don’t know all that much about Laurel, tell you the truth,” Alicia went on. “She came in, always acted like she was pissed off at somethin’. Most of us just steered clear of her.”

“Why’d she cut you?” Keller asked.

She grimaced. “I made some stupid joke about that creepy boyfriend of hers.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” she folded her arms across her chest, as if the memory made her cold. “He was good-looking, I mean, for an older guy, but he was old enough to be her father. And he was … I don’t know, there was somethin’ not right about him.”

“Was she staying with him?”

Alicia shrugged. “I guess. She always left with him. And he dropped her off in the morning. Anyway, I made some crack about how her daddy was here to pick her up. Next thing I know, she’d cut me.”

“Either of them ever say anything about where the boyfriend lived? What he did?”

“Naw. He kept tellin’ people he was an actor. Said he knew a lot of people at the movie studio. Talked a lot about movies he’d been in, but they was all older stuff. He never seemed to be workin’ these days.” She leaned forward and her voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “Dealin’ drugs, is what I think.”

Keller thought for a moment. He knew a couple of people working at the Screen Gems lot outside of town. Maybe they had a listing of people who had worked there. It would be a long list; the studio was the biggest production facility on the East Coast. This was assuming the boyfriend wasn’t just a poser. Still, the boyfriend was all the lead he had right now. “This guy named Roy by any chance?”

“Yeah,” Alicia said. “Roy Randle. Sounded fake to me.”

“Probably,” Keller said. “But I’ll check it out. Thanks.” He slid out of the booth and stood up.

The flirtatious grin was back. “So when you gonna show me them handcuffs?” She darted a glance at the kitchen, where Bart was haranguing the other waitress about something. She lowered her voice. “I get off in an hour.”

“Sorry,” Keller said. “My workday’s just starting.”

“Well,” she said, disappointment obvious in her face, “I work every weekday ‘til three. Stop by, when you have some time.”

“I could be an axe murderer for all you know,” Keller said.

She smiled at him. “You don’t look crazy,” she said.

Shows how much you know, Keller thought. He left a twenty on the table for the coffee and the information and walked out.

Out in the car, he flipped open the file and looked again at the picture of Laurel Marks. He was beginning to get a sense of her, beginning to fill in the spaces behind what he could see in the photo. Now he felt the anger in the set of the jaw, the fury behind the eyes. He looked back at the restaurant. Alicia was looking out the window at him. When she saw him look up, she waved, then went back to work.

Keller shook his head. Not so long ago, he would have played the game, done the dance of invitation and withdrawal, until the final act, bodies locked together in a momentary coupling in a rumpled bed somewhere. And after that…nothing. For the long dead years since the desert, nothing had meant anything to him.

Now, everything had changed. Keller slid the cell phone into the slot of his hands-free system and hit a number on the speed dialer. There was the soft chirring of the ringer on the other end, then a gravelly male voice answered. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Jones,” Keller said. “It’s Jack Keller.”

“Keller,” Marie’s father growled, “how many times have I gotta tell you to call me Frank?”

“Sorry, Frank,” Keller said. “Marie’s working, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he said, “You wanna leave a message?” A loud metallic banging rose in the background, filling the car. “BEN!” Frank Jones shouted. “Cut it OUT! I’m on the PHONE!” The banging stopped.

“Sounds like you’re pretty busy,” Keller said. “Thirty years I was a cop,” Frank said. “I handled drunks, dopeheads, thieves, about a thousand varieties of asshole…and the person that’s made me craziest is a freakin’ five-year-old.”

“You can’t shoot him,” Keller said. “That’s what’s making you nuts.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “That’s gotta be it. Anyway…”

“Just tell her I called. About this weekend.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “You comin’ up?”

“I don’t know yet,” Keller said.

Frank’s voice turned cooler. “Okay,” he said. “Whatever.”

Keller was about to say something, but the banging started up again. “BEN!” Frank hollered before coming back on the line. “Gotta go,” he said in a harried voice.

“Thanks, Frank,” Keller said, but the line was dead.

Shelby was standing over a plump woman in a shapeless flowered dress, on her knees in the parking lot. She had her hands over her face. As Shelby tried to put his hand on her shoulder, she dropped her hands, threw back her head, and screamed again. It was a wordless soul-tearing howl of anguish and despair and it made the hair on the back of Marie’s neck go up. Shelby yanked his hand back as if the woman had burned him.

Marie holstered the gun and walked over. The woman’s screams had subsided to great convulsive sobs and she had covered her face with her hands again. Marie looked at Shelby.

“Station owner’s wife,” he said.

“Jesus Christ,” Marie said. “She scared the shit out of me.”

A strange pained look flickered across Shelby’s face for a moment, then was gone. Marie hesitated for a moment, puzzled by the sudden tension between them. She broke it by asking, “The lady make an ID yet?” He gestured at her. “Looks like she’s doin’ one right now, doncha think?”

She grimaced. “Yeah, but we’ve got to…ah, shit.” Marie knelt beside the woman and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Ma’am?” she said softly. “Ma’am, please, I need to ask you something.”

The woman suddenly turned to Marie and grabbed her shoulders like a drowning person blindly pulling her rescuer under with her. Her pale face was wet with tears and her eyes red and swollen.

“My boy,” she croaked. “Oh, God, oh, Jesus, did they kill my boy, too?” Her eyes unfocused and another wail seemed to be building deep inside her. Marie grabbed the woman’s shoulders in her own grip. A passerby might have thought they were wrestling. Marie shook the woman slightly. “Ma’am!” she barked. The woman came back briefly. “What boy, ma’am? Was your son here?”

The woman nodded vigorously. “How old, ma’am?”

Marie persisted. “How old is your son?”

“Suhh…suh…sixteen,” the woman blubbered. Her eyes went away again. She buried her face back in her hands and began sobbing.

Marie got up and looked at Shelby. “I haven’t found another body,” she said. “But there’s some drops of blood in the restroom. And some paper towels in the trash with blood on them. Like someone was trying to clean up.”

Shelby gestured toward where the body lay. “No one tried to clean up in there. So maybe the victim got a few licks in on the guy that kilt him.”

“Or,” Marie said, “maybe the kid’s…” She looked at the woman on the ground. “I’ll look around.” Shelby nodded. He bent down to the woman on the ground and began trying to raise her to her feet.

Marie checked the back of the station. There was a narrow passageway between the back of the building and a tangle of kudzu vines that had overtaken and strangled a thicket of pine trees behind the station. The narrow path was littered with twelve-ounce plastic soda bottles and discarded food wrappers. Marie slowly made her way down the narrow passage. It was barely wide enough for her to get through. There was no sign of anything or anyone having gone into the woods. She came around the other side of the station where a Dumpster sat, its green paint flaked off to expose the metal beneath, showing cancerous patches of rust. She took a deep breath and held it before looking in. Nothing. She walked back around to the front. Shelby had gotten the woman into the backseat of his car and was crouched down on the pavement next to the car door, nodding at something she was saying. Marie walked into the repair bay.

The lights were off and there were no cars in the bay for repairs. There was a door at the far end on which the word PARTS had been written with a marker on the bare wood. She opened the door and looked inside. She saw handmade wooden shelves filled with haphazardly stacked boxes of hoses, gaskets, fuses, and the like, but no body.

She was closing the door when she noticed the safe. It was tucked away in a comer of the tiny storeroom. The door stood wide open. Marie walked over, crouched down, and looked inside. Empty. She bit her lip and thought for a moment. Then she got up and walked back toward the front of the station. As she passed by the workbench, a flash of pink caught her eye. It was a magazine. She picked it up and grimaced. A girl who looked barely out of high school was on the cover. She was naked. Marie’s lip curled in disgust. She moved as if to toss the magazine back onto the workbench. Then she saw the streak of blood on the cover. She put the magazine gently back down, as close to its original place as she could remember before walking back out into the sunlight. Shelby was coming her way. They met in the middle of the lot.

“Nothing?” Shelby said. Marie shook her head.

“So the boy was took,” Shelby said. The kidnapper beat him up, tried to get him cleaned up, and took him.”

Marie kept her voice low. “Maybe, but there’s a safe in the storeroom. It’s open and looks like it’s been cleaned out.”

“Kidnapping and robbery then.”

“There’s more,” Marie said. “There’s a pomo magazine on the workbench. There’s blood on it, too.” Shelby looked startled for a moment, then looked away. My God, Marie thought, he’s blushing. After a moment, he looked back. “So the killer walked in on the victim readin’ a dirty magazine and they din’t like it.”

“Or the kid was reading the magazine,” Marie said. “And that’s why he didn’t notice the killer coming in. Or killers. We can’t rule out more than one.”

Shelby shook his head. “We need to call the SBI. Get a crime scene team in here. Meantime, we may have us a child kidnapped.”

“Shelby, you need to consider something,” Marie said. “Maybe the kid did it.”

Shelby looked pained. “Look,” Marie said. “I know it may be tough to think about, a child killing a parent…”

“Stepparent,” Shelby said. “The mother said the victim weren’t the natural father.” He grimaced. “But yeah, I already thought of that. Don’t like to think that way, but it’s surely possible.” He looked at Marie. “But if that boy is kidnapped and we don’t treat it that way…”

“Yeah,” Marie said. “You’re right. We’ll get crucified.” The uncomfortable look crossed Shelby’s face again. What is eating this guy? Marie wondered. “So,” she said after a moment. “You want to do an Amber Alert?”

Shelby pondered this for a moment. Amber Alert would put a statewide media notification, like that for a tornado or other natural disaster, onto hundreds of participating TV and radio stations. For a child under thirteen, when there was a possibility of stranger abduction or imminent harm, Amber Alert was automatic. For disappearances of children older than that, potential abductions were considered on a case-by-case basis. “No,” Shelby said, “not yet. We’ll keep lookin’ at ever’thing.” He looked at Marie, up and down. “Jones,” he said.

Marie shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Yes, sir…I mean, yeah?”

“My reg’lar partner’s out. He just had surgery. Prostate cancer.”

Marie was startled by the sudden change in subject. “Sorry to hear it.”

“He’ll be awright,” Shelby said. “They got it early. But he’ll be laid up for a while an’ I’m a little shorthanded right now. Y’want to work this one with me?”

Would I? Marie thought. Work a murder, possible kidnapping? She had been waiting to sit for the sergeant’s exam before the death of her partner had derailed her career, and suddenly a whole new path had opened up for her. Her heart leaped for a moment. Then it came back to earth as she looked at the mother weeping in the back of Shelby’s car. She felt a momentary flash of shame.

“Yeah,” she told Shelby. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He nodded. “I’ll talk to the major and set it up.”

Marie grimaced. “He’s not going to be happy with that. He’s a real bear about overtime.”

Shelby gave her that snaggletoothed grin again. “He’ll get over it. He owes me.”

“Okay,” she said. She took a business card out of her pocket and scribbled a number on it. “Here’s my cell number,” she said.

“Good,” he said. His face turned serious. “But Jones, I want to ask you something.”

“Okay,” Marie said, her eyes wary. Now the catch, she thought.

“Could you not take the Lord’s name in vain in front of me?” Shelby asked.

Marie was struck dumb for a moment. Shelby went on resolutely.

“I know you get used to rough language in law enforcement,” he said. “Before I got saved, I was guilty of it myself. But I’d really appreciate it.”

Marie finally found her voice. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t know—”

Shelby waved it off. “I know. I don’t blame you for it, it’d just make it easier for us to work together, y’understand.”

“Sure,” Marie said. “No problem. I mean, I’ll try … ”

He nodded, looking satisfied. “That’s all any of us can do, Marie,” he said. His face lit up with a sudden idea. “Hey,” he said. “Whyn’t you come over for dinner tomorrow night? Barbara can make up some of her fried chicken. There’s plenty.”

“Ahh … I was going to see my, ah, boyfriend tomorrow night.” Boyfriend. The word still felt strange to Marie.

“Heck, bring him, too,” Shelby said. “Barbara always makes enough to feed a platoon.”

She smiled. “He’s in Wilmington,” she said, “but maybe I could persuade him to come up.” “Six-thirty, then,” he said. “And come hungry.”